In a constantly evolving digital landscape, organizations across all sectors must take steps to keep pace with threat trends and technological advances. Cybercriminals are always looking to develop more effective tactics for more successful attacks, and it is crucial for cybersecurity efforts to keep up with growing risks.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) is a data-focused approach to securing complex digital environments. It addresses many of the issues associated with a rapidly evolving threat and technology landscape, and it is one of the fastest-growing areas in cybersecurity today. Effectively utilizing DSPM to your advantage requires an adaptive and up-to-date approach, accounting for new developments in DSPM tools and their capabilities.
What is DSPM?
Before examining emerging trends in the DSPM market, it is important to understand what DSPM is and what it does. DSPM tools can cover a wide range of data security functions, as they are designed to provide comprehensive data visibility and protection across complex environments, including multi-cloud and hybrid environments.
Some of the key capabilities of DSPM tools are:
- Data Discovery: Seeking and identifying data across all platforms (including IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS), reducing the risks associated with unknown and undiscovered data stores, known as shadow data.
- Data Classification: Classifying data by its sensitivity and applicable regulations, creating helpful categorizations for security and productivity purposes.
- Risk Assessment: Risk discovery methods, such as vulnerability scanning and risk correlation, are used to evaluate the security of data assets.
- Risk Prioritization: Prioritizing different data assets and security issues based on the level and the urgency of the threats present, “enabling organizations to focus resources on the most critical risks” first.
- Configuration, Policy, and Compliance Management: Helping to align security configurations and policies with best practices, industry standards, and regulatory requirements by detecting misconfigurations and enforcing security policies.
- Reporting and Alerting: Providing detailed reports to offer organizations insight into their data security posture and any potential risks that may affect them while also enabling compliance audits.
- Remediation and Prevention: Giving organizations important intelligence and actionable advice for improving security posture, remediating vulnerabilities, and preventing data breaches.
Importance of DSPM for Modern Organizations
With many organizations employing large and complex multi-cloud environments, the increasing popularity of DSPM is a natural result of growing attack surfaces and evolving threats. As these trends continue to develop, it is more important than ever for organizations to invest in security tools and policies that are designed to address modern, constantly changing security needs. DSPM helps organizations discover and protect data in complex digital environments where traditional security measures often fall short.
One major reason DSPM can help is that organizations these days store and handle massive and growing amounts of data spread across huge attack surfaces. Legacy tools are not equipped to discover and protect data dispersed throughout the cloud. These large volumes of data are often subject to a variety of compliance requirements, and DSPM’s compliance management capabilities help to align security with regulations.
An evolving threat landscape also means that newer and more advanced security tools are necessary. While some tactics and types of threats are tried and true, bad actors are constantly developing more sophisticated methods to launch advanced attacks. This constant shifting means that organizations require modern security solutions that can adapt over time.
DSPM is especially helpful in streamlining key data security processes, saving security teams time and effort. Many tasks in data security are time-consuming and repetitive, and DSPM tools can automate many of these tasks, in addition to in-depth analyses and incident response functions, leaving security teams to work on projects that require the human touch.
Emerging and Evolving DSPM Trends
Organizations hoping to benefit from implementing DSPM tools should stay up-to-date on current and projected trends and innovations to ensure they get the most out of DSPM. Looking ahead, there are a few significant developments in DSPM technology and methods that are likely to continue in the near future. The most basic trend is the continuing growth in the popularity of DSPM tools as more and more organizations choose to adopt them.
As with many other areas of cybersecurity, DSPM strategies are increasingly attempting to integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities. These technologies have been in the spotlight in recent years for both business and individual purposes, and DSPM is no exception to this trend. AI and ML technology can enable DSPM tools to carry out detailed data security functions quickly, accurately, and securely. Combined with a trend toward automating certain functions, this can optimize the efficiency of data protection measures.
Another significant evolving trend in DSPM is the increasing adoption of zero-trust principles. Zero-trust architecture and policies are essential in data security as they ensure that users only have access to the areas and files required for their function. This reduces the risks of accidental data leaks, insider threats, and compromised accounts, leading to major data breaches. Zero-trust principles in DSPM can ensure that organizations can protect their most sensitive data.
Conclusion
As organizations continue to adopt DSPM to protect the data spread out across complex digital environments, it is important to look ahead to not only implement these tools, but effectively manage them over time. The DSPM market, digital landscape, threat trends, and technological advances are constantly changing the state of data security, and remaining in the loop on current and upcoming shifts is vital. DSPM, like many other areas of security, is increasingly incorporating tactics and technologies like AI/ML and zero-trust principles to adapt and evolve for more successful data protection.
Angela Spearman is a journalist at EzineMark who enjoys writing about the latest trending technology and business news.
